Matthew 9 Study Notes

9:16-17 The images of a shrinking patch tearing the garment that it was intended to repair and brittle wineskins rupturing from the gases released by fermenting wine picture the incompatibility of traditional Jewish teaching and Jesus’s teaching.

9:18-19 The man was a leader of the synagogue.

9:20-22 This woman’s condition left her perpetually unclean (Lv 25:15-31; Is 64:6). The penalty for entering the temple while unclean ranged from forty lashes to death by stoning (m. Ker. 1:1).

9:23-26 The presence of mourners and flute players indicate that the girl had been dead for a while and that her funeral had begun (m. Ketub. 4:4). The word asleep implies that death is a state from which believers will be awakened at the resurrection (1Th 4:13-14).

9:27 On the meaning of Son of David, see note at 1:1. The healing of the blind recalls Is 35:5-6 and confirms Jesus’s identity as Messiah.

9:28-31 On the relationship between faith and Jesus’s healing miracles, see note at v. 2.

9:32-33 The healing of a man who was unable to speak recalls Is 35:5-6 and confirms Jesus’s identity as Messiah (see notes at vv. 2 and 27).

9:34 Because they were unable to deny Jesus’s repeated exorcisms, the Pharisees attempted to dismiss them as evidence of his alliance with Satan. Jesus later showed how unreasonable this accusation was (12:25-32).

9:35 On Jesus’s ministry in the region of Galilee, see note at 4:23. These two very similar verses bracket Mt 4:23-9:34 as a single literary unit.

9:36 The words like sheep without a shepherd recall Ezk 34. They imply that Israel’s spiritual condition reflected the failures of its spiritual shepherds. By showing compassion for the abused and neglected sheep of God’s flock, Jesus identified himself as the Shepherd of God’s people, Lord and Servant of David (Ezk 34:11-16,20-24). See also Mt 25:32; 26:31.

9:37-38 By sending out the Twelve in Mt 10:5, Jesus identified himself as Lord of the harvest. Since OT texts and rabbinic parables presented the Lord as master of the harvest in portrayals of eschatological judgment (Is 18:4-5; 27:12; Hs 6:11; Jl 3:13), this identification strongly implies Jesus’s deity (3:11-12; 13:39,41).